The inaugural launch had appeared to be going well until moments after the rocket was dropped from beneath the left wing of the jumbo jet dubbed Cosmic Girl. The highly modified jumbo jet took off from Mojave Air and Space Por t in the desert north of Los Angeles and flew out just beyond the Channel Islands, where the drop occurred.

The space agency is shutting down its Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where the Space Launch System rocket is being built, and the nearby Stennis Space Center, administrator Jim Bridenstine said late Thursday.

Elon Musk's Mars vision, morphed into a shake-up of the old space industry, and a fleet of new private rockets. Now, those rockets will launch NASA astronauts from Florida to the International Space Station -- the first time a for-profit company will carry astronauts into the cosmos.

An Iraqi colonel inside the base told Reuters he heard at least 10 rockets hit the base and said he could now hear sirens blaring. It was not immediately clear if there had been any casualties and no group has claimed responsibility. The Iraqi army found an abandoned truck with a rocket launcher and some unused Katyusha rockets on its back in the nearby area of Umm al-Izam